Deadly Treatment (11 page)

I
t had been a busy morning for the three of them, and Taylor was tired and grumpy. She was tired of stapling pictures of Joshua on telegraph poles; she was tired of asking shopkeepers if they would put his image in their windows; she was tired of pounding the streets; and she was uncharitably tired of Erin’s voice.

As she watched them from across the street, Malone, as usual, looked tireless and appeared to be as enthusiastic as Erin as they tag-teamed in and out of the stores and businesses that surrounded the burnt out warehouse. Taylor wished she could be more benevolent, but she was more of an organizer than a doer. On the other hand, she was happy to see Malone happy; from the moment she’d first met him in the office of her former boss, she could tell that he was a ‘get off your ass and do something’ type of guy, and that was one of the many things she loved about him — that and his unyielding sense of purpose and truth. She knew that in many ways their initial serendipitous meeting could so easily have gone sour; after all, Malone was sure her ex-boss was involved in the disappearance of his daughter. But for some crazy mixed up reason, they had almost immediately fallen in love — and that was that.

She knew he wasn’t the type of guy to sit in an office and shuffle paper — but that was where Taylor excelled. She could do so much more at a desk than out here on the pavement. It was time for her to make a stand, time for her to put her foot down and show Malone what she could really add to this missing person’s team. Taylor set her shoulders straight, took a deep breath, and strutted across the street to Malone and Erin.

‘Malone, can I have a word with you please?’ she began.

‘That’s great news,’ Erin said, snapped her mobile closed, and hijacked the conversation.

‘Guess what guys, that was Detective Rodriguez on the phone, and he said he’s got me on the afternoon news show and a rerun on the late news.’

‘That’s fantastic!’ Taylor said enthusiastically.
Finally a chance to get off this damned street,
she thought. ‘We should go back to your place and I’ll help you find the perfect thing to wear. Maybe help with your hair, give you a few tips on what to say and how to say it.’ Taylor was genuinely excited as the words tumbled out; coaching Erin through her interview was something she had experience with; plus, they could stop with the damn posters and the walking.

‘What do you think?’ Erin asked, looking at Malone.

‘I think it’s a great idea; Taylor’s a pro when it comes to handling the media.’

Taylor could have kissed him.

The three of them walked briskly back towards the car.

‘What did you want to ask me?’ Malone asked Taylor.

‘Nothing,’ she replied happily.

‘I think I’m going to wet my pants – I’m a bag of nerves,’ Erin said as she fiddled with the photo of Joshua.

They were sitting in the green room of the TV station. Since he’d been through this traumatic experience before, Malone tried to offer some words of wisdom, but Erin chose to take her direction from Taylor, the professional.

‘The main thing to focus on is getting Joshua to come home. You want to tell him you love him and that you’re waiting for him,’ Taylor said softly.

‘But what if he doesn’t see the show? What if he can’t see the show?’ Erin was working herself up.

Taylor moved closer to her.

‘Be strong, I’m sure he’ll be watching.’

‘We’re ready for you now,’ the presenter said as he popped his head around the door.

‘Break a leg,’ Taylor smiled.

The set was basic, just two chairs and a coffee table with a blue screen backdrop. Erin asked what the blank green wall was all about and the presenter quickly told her that during the interview, the image of Joshua, a reference and location map, and a photo of the burned down warehouse would be screened on it. She nodded, but Taylor knew she didn’t understand what he was talking about.

The interview was emotional, and Erin broke down several times. Thankfully, the presenter did his job well and kept the whole thing flowing smoothly. It ended with Erin holding up the photo of Joshua to the camera and pleading for her son to come home.

Daniel had arrived home to an empty house. His head was full of unanswered questions. Why did his mother give him up at such a young age? Who was his father? Why did the orphanage go against the rules and take him in? Where was his mother now? Who was the man with the evil eyes? Was he his father? And why did Sister Elizabeth keep this photo from him? So many questions. His head throbbed and his stomach growled with hunger, it was time to raid the fridge.

Besides getting both Malone and Daniel to take pride in their appearance by buying them decent shampoos and branded toiletries such as
King of Shaves, Boss
, and
Ted Baker
, another of the many great things Taylor had brought to the household was her fabulous cooking. Daniel was sure Taylor was one of those gifted people who was able to create a banquet out of the trash can. Salivating, he went to the kitchen and pulled some leftovers out of the fridge, ‘apricot stuffed pork loin with croquet potatoes — yum,’ he said as he piled the meat onto a plate and nuked it.

Today was one of those rare occasions when Daniel actually wanted to talk to someone, and ironically, no one was around. ‘Typical,’ he said out loud. Resigning himself to an evening of trawling the web and hacking databases in search of answers, Daniel eyed the microwave as he waited for the inevitable ding. However, his plan was interrupted by the ring of the phone.

‘Hi; this is Daniel.’

‘Hi Daniel, Logan here.’

‘Hi. Look Malone isn’t in, and to be honest I’m not exactly sure where he is,’ Daniel said flatly.

‘Actually Daniel, It’s you I’m after. We’ve found your mother.’

A
s was the usual routine, Vince and Scott went to meet their contact, Mr. Tims, at the Fireman’s Lift bar to pick up their new assignment. Neither party wanted to hang around after the meeting, so after the usual pleasantries, Tims left. The thing that made this meeting different from all the others was that unbeknownst to Tims, he was followed.

Having nothing to do but wait for the next part of his mission, Elwood had decided it would be good to get to know a little more about the LA contractor he used — plus, it would be a good opportunity to hone his surveillance skills. So, he’d trailed Tims for a few hours, and by accident stumbled onto the meeting in the bar. He watched the clandestine meeting unfurl, and the envelope passing and the intermittent whispering made it easy for Elwood to figure out that Tims was meeting with two of his torches. He wondered where the dwarf was, but shrugged it off for the moment. Once the meeting finished, Elwood decided to change his focus to the two men. ‘Let’s see how good these guys are,’ he said to himself.

Back at the house, Vince and Scott spread the contents of their newly acquired file out on the table as they set about planning the new job.

‘It’s a beautiful looking place,’ Scott said.

‘No argument there,’ Vince replied.

They were both admiring the images of what could best be described as a mansion sitting proudly on the hillside near the top of Mulholland Drive. The file contained the home’s entire history, an unusual amount of information from Tims, but he’d told them it made such good reading he decided to include it.

The house had been constructed in the days when land on the hill was priced within the reach of common folk, not just the wealthy. An investor, and as it turned out, a visionary, bought a fair-sized chunk of land on the city-facing side of the hill with the intention of building a modest home with a great view that could be handed down to his offspring. Little did he know just how difficult it would be to build on the hillside, nor how very valuable the land would become.

Due to construction costs, the original home wasn’t much larger than a cabin with a deck. But what a view! Friends and visitors were awestruck at the property’s vista, and it didn’t take long for others to pick up land on the hill. As land became scarcer, its value increased. Added to this was the type of people who were buying into the area: wealthy and famous people, ambitious and prestigious people, competitive and showy people. Homes on the hillside were spreading like measles.

Dragged into the furor of peer pressure and one-upmanship, the investor sold off some of his land and decided to build and build big. The original cabin was removed and hillside excavations were started. Over the next year, a home of immense proportions was erected.

It really was a spectacular sight, a mixture of faded peach plaster, wrought iron, and floor-to-ceiling windows. The pool, spa, and vast decking area was an entertainer’s dream, and for months after the house was completed, the investor threw lavish parties to which he invited friends, and in particular, neighbors, to both gloat and show off. However, his neighbors were not going to be outdone, and bigger and ever more creative houses were built.

Finally, bankrupt and alone, the investor committed suicide. He was found face down in the pool with enough scotch and pills to have killed him twice over.

The deceased and bankrupt estate was picked up by a porn tycoon. He seized the opportunity to use the house for wild parties and as a film set for his own movie productions. Once again, a drug overdose took the life of the house’s owner; this time, however, it was a cocktail of cocaine, heroin, and a mixture of horse tranquilizers and erection maintainers. The Medical Examiner spent days telling jokes about how he imagined the final moments of the man’s life must have played out, high, numb, and as hard as a concrete highrise. 

For decades after that, the house’s ownership had settled down. It was picked up by rich but quiet families and only changed hands for the usual relocation or boredom reasons. The house had no further tales to tell — until now.

The men fished though the files till they found the information on the current owner.

‘Now, there’s a reason to come home at night,’ Vince said as he held up a photo of a stunning buxom blonde.

‘According to the rest of the file, she’s the reason there’s not going to be a home to go to.’ Scott handed the rest of the file to his partner to read.

For the past six years, the house had been the home of a fairly prominent actor named Ron Hughes. He bought the house with his first big pay cheque and paid more than the asking price because he fell in love with the house, its history, the views it offered, and his perceived need to impress an up and coming supporting actress he’d fallen for on the set. It was a very familiar story; Louise Robertson was a beautiful mid-western girl who’d arrived in LA with big dreams to become a star. As it turned out, her real true break came in the form of connecting with Ron, the leading man. He then became her personal ticket to fame and fortune. They were married within months.

She rode on the back of his success for years, According to the file, it had taken years for Ron Hughes to finally catch on to the fact that he was being taken for a ride. The final straw came when one of her exploits was caught on camera by the paparazzi and splashed all over the gossip magazine. He put divorce proceedings in motion immediately, but the long and short of it was — she got the house.

He didn’t really begrudge her getting something from the divorce, but he hadn’t wanted it to be the house. He’d fought tooth and nail to keep it, but as it turned out, her lawyers fought harder — evidently, she knew how much the house meant to him, so taking it from him was a real victory for her. In retaliation, since he couldn’t have it, he was going to make sure that no one else could either — especially her.

The job was to be done immediately while Ron was out of town working on his next big hit. Picking the right time to torch the house, a time when to Louise and her staff would not be on site, was easy enough. The staff worked on set rosters, and she spent many nights out in pursuit of a new beau.

For them, the best part of this job was that it was meant to be a spectacle. Since Ron, the main suspect, was out of the state and had a cast-iron alibi, and they were sure their contact Tims would, as always, leave no paper trail to follow, they felt they could really have fun with this project.

Their biggest problem was the LAPD and Neighborhood Watch. Mulholland was a well-known, somewhat infamous area with its own checkered past, and as such was policed and monitored closely. They would need to come up with a way to get in and out without raising suspicion.

‘How about a service truck?’ Vince started.

‘At night?’ Scott replied

‘Who says we have to do this at night?’ Vince argued more for the sake of it than anything else.

‘I do. If you think I’m going up there in broad daylight, you must be out of your mind.’

‘Fair enough,’ his partner nodded.

‘Plus, the client wants a spectacle; fire is so much better at night.’

‘How much fun can we have with this job?’ Vince asked.

‘Much as we like, I’d say. Why d’ya ask?’

‘Well, remember the job we did in Burlington?’

‘Explosives — you want to use explosives?’ He pondered this for a moment.

‘Explosives… Why not?’

They both smiled at the idea of not just torching the building, but blowing the whole thing up.

‘It does make things that much harder. In particular, how to get up there, do the job, and get out without being noticed.’

Vince thought for a while before clicking his fingers.

‘I know exactly what to use.’

Having extracted Cain’s LA contact from his home at around 4 A.M., Elwood drove the pajama-clothed man to the top of an unused multistory parking lot and dragged him out of the car.

‘My employers told you what would happen if you went ahead and tried to get the Xeroxed newspaper distributed, didn’t they?’ Elwood held the owner of the recently charcoaled Culver City office by the throat and moved him precariously close to the edge of the six-floor drop. He could feel the man trying to nod. ‘Now, due to the fire, the building and its contents no longer exist, so you have inadvertently agreed to our wishes. But I now have a couple more questions I need you to answer. Number one, where did you get the original copy?’

‘I can’t…Please,’ he pleaded.

‘You can and you will, or I can see a very limited future for you.’

The man crumbled and gave up a name as Elwood inched him closer to the edge.

‘Thank you. Now tell me what you know about Anthony Cain.’

‘Cain? He works for you. What should I know about him? He’s the one you’re working for, isn’t he?’

‘I’m the one asking the questions! Has Anthony Cain been to see you in the past twenty-four hours?’

‘What? No’

Already broken, Elwood was sure the man wasn’t lying. Cain had obviously not been to see him prior to going to the office. Elwood chose to spare the man’s life, and told him if he had to come and visit him again, he wouldn’t be so congenial.

Back in his SUV, Elwood typed out his report, ending it with the solution to the mystery he himself wanted answered — the man from Culver hadn’t helped him. Cain had somehow learned how to pick locks. That left two final and logical answers to the whereabouts of the missing storage device — up in smoke, or with the Torches

.